Sunday morning, halftime

April 24, 2011

This, people, is Sweet Baby Jesus good. Trust me.

Seriously good. And seriously pretty. Would be great for a casual dinner or a luncheon.

I have been a busy little bee this morning, I have. To date, we have made 40 meatballs (that’s five meatball sandwiches’ worth) that are presently simmering in marinara sauce (Sigh. It’s Ragu. NS prefers that. I have to admit, it’s easier.), a baby meatloaf with the leftover beef/pork/veal mix from the meatballs, a loaf of Guinness whole wheat bread, and this:

This is a really Cool Thing. You will remember that I had made rye sourdough starter Friday night, with the intent of making rye bread this morning. And I had, in fact, put together said rye bread and was letting it rise when I sat down to peruse some blogs I like to read. And over on Dark Side of the Fridge, the Toy Lady was making the highest and best use of rye bread, which is, of course, in a sandwich featuring either pastrami or corned beef. Except she was baking the insides right there in the loaf, and I thought, “Damn! That’s just pretty cool!”

So I betook myself to the grocery and bought pastrami and aged Swiss cheese. Came home, and by that time the rye had risen (in honor of Easter, I reckon), so I rolled it out, splooched on some spicy brown mustard down the middle third of it, layered on very nearly a full pound of pastrami, and topped that with very nearly a pound of aged Swiss. Cut my little “wings” in the bread and lapped them over. Except that I really didn’t roll my bread out big enough (or I put too much stuff in the middle, one or t’other) and my “wings” were a bit short. They just met in the middle instead of lapping over in a lattice pattern. If this is as good as I think it’s going to be (and it had better be, with about $14 worth of pastrami and cheese in it), I’ll remedy that when I make it next time.

The rye recipe is from my newest cookbook, Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads, which I picked up Friday and dearly love. It’s a triple rye bread, with a sourdough starter (a cheater, since it uses yeast to start the sponge) featuring rye flour and rye flakes, and then allegedly, soaked and sprouted rye berries. I had no rye berries, so I used spelt. Will have to check out the whole foods store and see if they have rye berries next time; if not, I think they can be left out and it’ll just be double rye bread.

That all done — and it’s 11 a.m., thankyouverymuch — I think I’m going to take a break and enjoy some coffee on the back porch until I’m ready to start the lobster stock and the assorted things THAT will bring with it. So perhaps I will be back with you and y’mama ‘n ’em later on.